Kerby Anderson

One of the Democratic arguments against President Trump is that he mismanaged the pandemic. Dr. Merrill Matthews asks, “Would a Democrat have managed the pandemic better?” He looks at four criticisms.

First, was the response too slow? On March 2, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo assured the people of his state that “the general risk remains low in New York.” On that same day, President Trump was meeting with major pharmaceutical company executives to speed the process of getting a vaccine. And it is worth mentioning that on that day there were 90 COVID-19 cases and six deaths.

Eleven days later (on March 13) President Trump declared the pandemic a national emergency. You could argue that he should have done it earlier, but eleven days doesn’t look like negligent procrastination.

Second, critics say Trump didn’t listen to the experts. But the medical experts were often wrong. Surgeon General Jerome Adams wrote that Americans should “STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing the general public from catching coronavirus.”

A third criticism of Trump has been the number of people filing for unemployment. But there is a clear connection between the shutdowns implemented by the governors and subsequent unemployment. Usually it was the Democratic governors who supported stricter and longer shutdowns.

Finally, there is the US death rate. America has the eighth highest death rate per capita. The four states with the highest death rates are: New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. They have Democratic governors and have higher death rates because of a disproportionate number of deaths in nursing homes.

Mistakes have been made at the federal and state level because the virus was novel and unpredictable. I don’t think someone from a different party could have done much better.